WOMEN’S PRESENCE IN MILITARY DISCUSSIONS ON OUR TELEVISION CHANNELS: WHY I DIFFER WITH ANURABH SAIKIA’S PIECE ‘GIRLS CAN’T TALK WAR: WHY NO WOMEN IN BORDER SKIRMISH DEBATES?’

The piece by Anurabh Saikia has been doing its rounds of ‘shares’ on the social media. Some women have proudly shared it on their Facebook profiles with pride, implying that women indeed believe in peace. Saikia has, in his piece, argued as to how women are adversely affected by armed conflicts too, and that the voice of their gender should be heard as well, on news channels in both India and Pakistan, on military matters concerning both the countries.

Saikia starts off by stating the following-

“Since October 5, when tensions on the border started escalating, almost every prime-time debate on news channels has carried a segment on the issue. Across the country’s five most-watched English news channels  – Times Now, NDTV, CNN-IBN, Headlines Today and News X –  there have been more than two dozen panels (often repetitive, though) which have passionately discussed the latest border skirmishes. However, only on two occasions has there been an Indian woman on a panel.

Radha Kumar, one of the three interlocutors for Jammu and Kashmir appointed by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) appointed by the last government in 2010 had featured on NDTV’s ‘Left, Right and Centre’ hosted by Nidhi Razdan on October 5. The only other instance when a woman spoke on national television during the course of the week on the subject was when NewsX got Leela Ponappa, a former Deputy National Security Adviser to be part of a debate titled ‘Who’ll Defend Our Indefensibles’, held on October 6.”

Further, he points out, referring to a United Nations Security Council deliberation in 2003-

“In an unexpected development, Masood Khali, Pakistan’s representative in the meeting, spoke twice. The second time was in response to the Indian representative VK Nambiar. Incidentally, Nambiar’s speech, as recorded in the official press release, was in itself a sort of rebuttal to Khali’s original address.

The meeting is a telling comment on both nations’ approach to everything Kashmir-related.  More importantly, it speaks volumes on the countries’ seriousness about achieving the primary goal of the resolution: letting women stakeholders have their say on issues that have affected them equally if not more."

Why should victimhood by violent Indo-Pak hostility (that is most significant in the economic context, given the expenditures on the military in both India and Pakistan, which could have otherwise been utilized for public welfare, though in Pakistan, the army has its own agenda) be seen through the prism of gender? Should we drag caste, creed and the likes in the equation too? And if Saikla is referring to direct impact on the lives of civilians living along the LoC, then, I must say, even such men are not invited to studios to share such experiences, though residents, male and female, are interviewed by reporters on the ground.

Saikla further points out that India and Pakistan have yet to arrive at any consensus on resolving the Kashmir issue, and suggests that perhaps, getting more women on board is going to help in arriving at such a consensus. On this point too, I completely disagree. Both India and Pakistan are countries where, to a great extent, nationalism is understood in jingoistic terms and where questioning mainstream nationalist narratives dished out by the state often amounts to blasphemy, and the morality of one’s state in its engagement with secessionist forces or other countries is often taken as axiomatic, with the only thing to complain about being its naivete or passivity (while a spontaneous reading of this statement may make you want to deny it, read this article of mine to understand where I am coming from). In this regard, while I have encountered exceptions in both the countries (and in Pakistan, many exceptions in the form of liberal intellectuals are much more loudly vocal than many of their Indian counterparts, as you can see here), I haven’t, in terms of making a generalization, found women to be more open-minded in this regard than men. In fact, some women who, based on social conditioning, follow the typified gender stereotype of being rote-learners and who don’t really tend to explore original ideas, can be much more rigid in their conservative outlook characterized by nationalist biases, which would only view a belligerent country from the eye-lens of being an enemy to be reckoned with, failing to understand that while safeguarding one’s borders is necessary, the narrative of the other side needs to also be understood (for example, in the Indian context, rationally and dispassionately trying to understand why Pakistan claims Kashmir or why China claims Arunachal Pradesh or Aksai Chin, whether the Indian government militarily and otherwise provoked the Sino-Indian War of 1962, whether state-sponsored terrorism is exclusive to Pakistan and other Muslim-majority countries or has also been the case with other countries including India vis-à-vis say, the LTTE, which also bombed innocent civilians in banks and marketplaces, and such an approach would obviously have no room for rejecting in a baseless fashion what doesn’t sound like music to one’s ears, based on nationalist biases) and a long-term solution to any issue with a fellow nuclear power has to lie in some kind of a compromise.

Moreover, in the specific context of the Kashmir issue, we’ve had enough of victimhood narratives being doled out from all sides, including not only from the Indian and Pakistani standpoints but even from the standpoint of those residing on both sides of the Line of Control in what constituted the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir who seek to carve out a sovereign country (whose voice had remained largely unheard in our media till the unrest of 2010), but crying hoarse about the ill-effects of armed conflict, whether by men or women, does not automatically translate into forging a peaceful solution (and no, just because more boys than girls take a keen interest in military strategy or war movies*, it doesn’t mean that they necessarily value peace any less, even if girls are, by and large, much less physically aggressive in their daily lives than boys!**), especially when an issue revolves around a legitimate question of state sovereignty. It is all very good to preach peace, but hardly anyone would, under normal circumstances, part with what considers rightfully one’s own, also given that this can set a precedent in terms of another country using force initially and then getting you to acquiesce to their demand in the name of peaceful resolution, with your country not defending or retaliating! Also, given the importance the army carries in Pakistan, and its own reasons to keep the Kashmir issue burning, dialogues with the civilian establishment there are quite futile, and no, bringing women as panelists on news channels is not going to help. True, there are misunderstandings about the other country on both sides of the border, but dispelling prejudices requires a systematic deconstruction based on facts and logic (which any open-minded, articulate person with good research skills, irrespective of gender, is capable of doing, and I, a man, have attempted to do the same with respect to Pakistan in this article, seeking to clarify that while the non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan are much worse off than in India, in terms of the violence they face and especially how the blasphemy law has been misused against Christians, the Pakistani populace in general is not extremist and the condition of the religious minorities and Muslim women there isn’t as bad as many here would imagine), rather than merely chanting the mantra of peace, which has never helped in any scenario.

Also, it must be noted that while it is impossible for me and most of the readers to assertively state who started the firing in the recent border skirmishes, I would also like to point out without any nationalist bias that given the bizarre denials that came from sections of the Pakistani establishment and society as regards 26/11 and Kargil, I do have my reasons to seriously doubt their version of events (even a Pakistani newspaper article very critical of the Indian government for the LoC cross-firings had to concede in the light of the Wagah blast that the real enemy of Pakistan lies within), and in that context, if indeed the Indian version is correct, then, to support defending one’s borders, even vehemently and ferociously if the need be, does not amount to jingoism or chest-thumping. In fact, on one debate I saw on the most chauvinistic Indian nationalist channel Times Now (and a retired Pakistani diplomat, who is a woman, was on the panel), Indian panelists like Maroof Raza were telling their Pakistani counterparts that Pakistan, with its problems on the western front with the Pakistani Taliban and economic crises, can ill-afford such misadventures, but one of the former Pakistani defence personnel on the panel replied by saying that they would make every possible attempt to grab Kashmir, irrespective of the consequences! Were both sides being equally jingoistic, at least in that debate? Certainly not! Would a sensible female Indian panelist have said, in the midst of such a debate, “Peace is desirable” a hundred times without focusing on the facts and circumstances? Obviously not! What sense would that have made, really? Saikla argues that even if women were to adopt a jingoistic tone like men do, their voice needs to be heard, with respect to military matters, only by virtue of giving their gender some representation, something I disagree with, just as I disagree with his definition of jingoism.

The famous female American writer Lionel Shriver, who courageously stayed in Belfast in Northern Ireland in the face of terrorist attacks by Catholic fanatics*** to understand the dynamics of the conflict, and has also written on the very feminine subject of motherhood, once commented that a writer should not be seen through the prism of gender. Indeed, empowering women doesn’t mean handing out doles by way of fixing a quota for them in different kinds of debates, and yes, both the Congress and the BJP have had their female spokespersons frequently showing up in different television debates on a wide variety of topics, including defence-related ones, and even Saikla has mentioned that Radha Kumar and Leela Ponappa (the latter is a very eloquent speaker and was invited for one of our Global Youth India programmes) were among the few women invited to such debates; so, it’s not as though there are no women figuring in such discussions either.

A resolution to the Indo-Pak conflict would necessitate expertise involving a grasp over the past and present circumstances prevalent in both the countries in the light of a larger geopolitical scenario, with foresight, and in the context of border skirmishes, a proper understanding of military affairs. Gender is quite irrelevant to this, expertise is relevant. Both India and Pakistan boast of having had female prime ministers – Indira Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto respectively (both of whom did not shy away from speaking an aggressive language against the other country, which, by the way, disproves the claim that women “can’t talk war” or believe in pacifism at all costs), and prominent women in all walks of life, and to suggest that the low number of women being invited for military debates is owing to some conscious gender bias is baseless. Saikla himself points out that “Ajai Shukla, a retired Colonel of the Indian Army and a regular face on debates pertaining to Indo-Pak conflicts told Newslaundry that since the bulk of the discussions on TV have involved retired army professionals, it is only natural that it was men-centric”, and this argument makes sense, for men in the armed forces of both India and Pakistan, especially in combat and combat logistics sections, far outnumber the women.**** But then, Saikla doesn’t seem interested in getting on board female combatants (who have yet to fight any war, from the Indian side, for their recruitment started only after the Kargil war in 1999, though one female cadet, Divya Ajith, won the Sword of Honour, the
award for all-round excellence, including physical fitness, endurance
and managing weapons, and Major Mitali Madhumita displayed great courage during the Taliban attack on an Indian military contingent in Kabul in the same year, winning the Sena Medal for her gallantry, and female combatants in the Indian paramilitary forces do have some experience of combat, and both India and Pakistan have had female paratroopers), or female defence logisticians, who may very well be brilliant and incisive in their analysis (yes, it may indeed be a legitimate question why more of such women are not invited, but to associate women with those talking peace at all costs is an insult to womanhood), for it seems that they do not conform to his worldview of subscribing to “feminine values” of having “emotional capital” (read sensitivity) as against the masculine approach of “macho posturing”, though what he calls “macho posturing” may just be a rational and logical approach with respect to defending the sovereignty of one’s country, rather than “panting for blood” as suggested by Saikla. A bold, adventurous woman with patriotic zeal and physical strength and endurance can be just as feminine in every respect as a female fashion model (just think of some sporty girls you know, who may not qualify as “tomboys”, though this is not to suggest that being tomboyish is wrong either!), just as a male chef (and most hotel chefs are men) or fashion model can be just as masculine as any soldier. Indeed, the history of our subcontinent is full of examples of women fighters, both Hindu and Muslim, such as Durgavati, Karmadevi, Lakshmibai, Razia Sultan, Nur Jahan and Chand Bibi in the medieval period or in the modern period, revolutionaries like Pritilata Wadedar and Sunti Ghose and even the women who fought very courageously in Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s INA. And coming from a Hindu family very fond of Hindu lore, I may point out that in the Mahabharat, there are references to Chitrangada, Arjun’s wife, being a fierce fighter, and in the Ramayan, to Kaikeyi an excellent charioteer who protected Dashrath (in return for which she later asked for two boons), and speaking of Islamic lore, Nusaybah bint Ka’ab fought in Prophet Muhammad’s army, and Prophet Muhammad’s wife, Aisha too later participated in war.***** I am not seeking to portray India as only Hindu or Pakistan as only Muslim, though Pakistan was indeed created to assert a Muslim identity.******

There are female defence analysts in India working in think-tanks and defence magazines (I have personally interacted with some)*******, and in Pakistan too, though perhaps, there are few as visible faces in the electronic media (if competent women are deliberately not being invited owing to gender considerations, that is sad), but Saikla has not brought on board any evidence to suggest that female professionals in this field have any greater an interest in peaceful conflict resolution than their male counterparts, though women desiring peace more is the premise of his argument (unless the women he wants to see invited are not experts at military strategy or foreign policy, which is bizarre********). And if they have views similar to their male counterparts, they needn’t be invited just because they are women to showcase some gender diversity on the panel, and invitations should only be on the basis of competence. I discussed this topic with a number of my female friends and acquaintances, and many of them pointed out that as per their understanding, while women can be competent enough to discuss any topic, most women genuinely do not have a very keen interest in military matters, which means that there are fewer women with expertise on these matters; hence, the lower representation (as discussed earlier, it’s not as though there’s no female representation, and this explanation offered by women themselves is more logical than Saikla’s allegation of gender bias), which makes perfect sense. Yes, if the media houses are deliberately avoiding competent women, based on sexist notions, that is unfortunate, and that can certainly be a valid concern if there is evidence to point in this direction, but again, Saikla’s focus on women being the ones who could forge peace and resolve international disputes is just lame, for these are very technical matters where expertise and creativity trumps gender, and so is the idea that women deserve representation in television debates related to military matters only by virtue of their gender, even if they speak the same language as the men do.

The author would like to thank all his female friends and acquaintances who helped him formulate his views on the subject.

*When I discussed the title of Saikla’s piece with female acquaintance of mine, she was very offended and said that she was actually very much interested in war movies.

**On the other hand, there are historical examples of female rulers resorting to wars of conquest, as is referred to with respect to the Pandya Empire in South India by Megasthenes or, in the Austrian context, Maria Theresa, who expanded the size of the army threefold, increasing taxes for the same, and she was not very tolerant or open-minded either (so, not very peace-loving in that sense too!), and was extremely intolerant towards the Jews.

***While this has nothing to do with refuting Saikla’s piece, I may point out that terrorism, even in the name of religion, is certainly no Muslim monopoly, as one can see from the Irish Republicans in Northern Ireland and fanatics in the United States bombing abortion clinics and the 1996 Olympic Games in the name of Catholicism, the Ku Klux Klan and other white racist groups giving their racist ideas a Biblical basis, Zionist terror outfits like the Haganah that had no qualms in killing those of their co-religionists who condemned them like journalist Jacob Israel de Haan, and the Jewish Defenzse League that targeted Soviets in the United States, as also secessionist insurgents in India’s northeast raising religious slogans and targeting innocent Hindu civilians and the Lord’s Resistance Army in the name of other sects of Christianity, the Khalistanis targeting innocent Hindus, Nirankari Sikhs and even pro-India Khalsa Sikhs in the name of Sikhism and the Ranvir Sena, Sunlight Sena and other such anti-Dalit terrorist organizations acting in the name of Hinduism (the Ranvir Sena justifies killing innocent Dalit women and children, citing the example of Hanuman burning Lanka in the Ramayan). Barring these, secessionist terrorists, such as Assamese Hindu insurgents, who killed innocent Bihari immigrants, and leftist radicals, like Maoists in India (and there are counterparts across the globe) who bomb election booths, killing innocent voters, may be cited.

It would indeed also be very interesting to note in this context that a report by Europol, the criminal intelligence agency of the Council of Europe, pointed out that only 3 of the 249 terrorist attacks (less than 2%) that took place in Europe in 2010 were carried out by jihadists (jihadism is not to be equated with the true concept of jihad in the Muslim scriptures, which is about internal self-cleansing or even under certain circumstances like forced displacements or violation of religious freedom as mentioned in verse 60:8 of the Quran, fighting a defensive war, following norms that interestingly, to a great extent, actually match those in modern international humanitarian law. Even in India, while terrorism in the name of Islam attracts the most attention for it often hits major cities like Delhi and Mumbai, more lives have been lost to acts of terrorism by non-Muslims, as has been pointed out in this article and this one.

It also must be noted that the victims of terrorism in the name of Islam have often been Muslims in Muslim-majority countries, and this is not just a recent phenomenon in the light of what we have seen in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Libya, but also, earlier, much before Osama came to target the US regime, he bombed Muslim civilians in Arab countries (as has been shown in the excellent Discovery Channel documentary 'Jihad - The Men & Ideas Behind Al Qaeda').Not too long ago, American Muslim pilgrims were targeted by terrorists in Saudi Arabia (of course, for the terrorists, any Muslim paying taxes to a government which such people see as “an enemy of Islam” is a crime, unless you are there to bomb Time Square or those participating in a race in Boston!), and a study in 2009 showed that Al Qaeda had killed eight times more Muslims than non-Muslims!

Indeed, there has been no dearth of statements by practising Muslims across the globe, including religious decrees from clerics, condemning terrorism as being totally antithetical to the teachings of Islam in letter and spirit. Recently, Muslims in Norway carried out a mass demonstration against the ISIS, and Indian Muslims have also carried out such demonstrations against terrorism in the past, other than Indian Muslim intellectuals specifically having issued statements condemning the ISIS. In fact, it must be noted that even within Iraq, there are Muslims bravely condemning the maltreatment of the non-Muslim minorities like Christians and Yazidis by the ISIS (one such Muslim professor in the Middle East raising his voice for Christians was killed), and many Yazidis have been protected from the ISIS by Kurdish Muslims (mostly Sunnis).

Sure, there are verses in the Quran that may seem contrary to our modern understanding of human rights, and there are such verses in the Bible too (for example, Deuteronomy 13:12-15, 1 Samuel 15:3 and Matthew 10:34 are Biblical verses seemingly advocating violence), but liberal and progressive adherents of Islam and Judaism/Christianity would contend that these verses are meant in a certain specific context, and would produce many other verses from the same books (such as verses 2:256, 5:8, 5:32, 6:108, 49:13 and 109:6 of the Quran, other than verse 60:8 mentioned earlier, that do speak of peace, religious tolerance and human brotherhood, as does the letter from Prophet Muhammad to the Christian monks of St. Catherine’s monastery) that would broadly be in agreement with our understanding, and this is true for other religions as well. And those suggesting that peaceful verses in the Quran are superseded by violent verses would do well to note that verse 109:6 appears towards the end of the book. This article mentioning an anecdote from the British parliament does make an interesting read in this context.

There is also a fairly well-known website run by an apostate and basher of Islam who has offered a cash prize to anyone who can disprove his allegations against Prophet Muhammad (but there are books by apostates of other religions criticizing their former religions too, the most famous one being Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell, and there’s also Why I am Not a Hindu by Kancha Ilaiah, indeed leveling very strong allegations), but practically, he is the judge of the debate, or to go by what he is saying, the “readership” of the website, a rather non-defined entity. In fact, he has acknowledged that he came across a Muslim who “intelligently argued his case and never descended to logical fallacies or insults” and while that Islam-basher “did not manage to convince him to leave Islam”, that Muslim earned his “utmost respect”, which implies that practically, the Islam-basher is the judge of the debate. Likewise, that Islam-basher has mentioned with reference to a scholar of Islam he debated with, that the latter was “a learned man, a moderate Muslim and a good human being” and someone he (the Islam-basher) has “utmost respect for”. So, that Islam-basher’s critique of Islam, whether valid or invalid, has no relevance in terms of making blanket stereotypes about the people we know as Muslims, or even practicing Muslims. By the way, that Islam-basher bashes Judaism too.

And it is worth mentioning that I have encountered several practising Muslims on discussion groups on the social media, who have, in a very calm and composed fashion, logically refuted the allegations against Islam on such websites.

My mentioning these facts, however, doesn’t, in the least, imply that I do not feel strongly about the issue of Muslim extremism globally and the danger it poses, and I’ve written this article on how to tackle it.

****Of course, countries like the United States have a relatively higher proportion of female combatants. Currently, many Iraqi Kurdish women are putting up a very courageous fight against the ISIS and recently, there was news of an Iraqi Kurdish woman, Rehana, killing over a hundred ISIS terrorists. Major Mariam Al Mansouri, a female fighter pilot from the UAE, has also been involved in anti-ISIS operations.

*****Again, while this is irrelevant in the context of rebutting Saikla’s piece, it also be noted that Prophet Muhammad’s wife Khadijah was a successful businesswoman, and the world’s oldest existing university, which is in Morocco and dates back to 859 AD, was set up by Fatima al Fihri, a well-educated Muslim woman. Prophet Muhammad is even believed to have mandated education for all, irrespective of gender, as you can see here and here. In fact, physical education was also included, for he had reportedly said that children (he did not specify only boys) must be taught archery, horse-riding and swimming. Conservative and patriarchal attitudes that do not look upon girls’ education very kindly were to be found traditionally in the nomadic tribal societies that the Pathans of Afghanistan and today’s Pakistan have been, but while I would not assert that Islam or any other major global religion (and in this, I include the oriental religions as much as the Abrahamic faiths) is completely free from patriarchy (with all due respect to everyone’s religious sentiments), this mindset of prohibiting girls’ education has no basis in Islamic theology.

Also, in our Indian context, as for those Hindus criticizing Islam for legitimizing polygamy, it must be noted that Islam prescribes a limit of four wives, and the Quran even clearly states that monogamy is better. In fact, polygamy is not prohibited by Hinduism as a faith (and, in fact, it was outlawed for Hindus only after independence, and Nehru faced stern opposition for the same from orthodox Hindus, and he wanted to reform Muslim personal law too, but passed away before that). The Puranic lore is full of multiple marriages by a single man – to quote some prominent examples, Krishna had thousands of wives, prominent among whom were Rukmini, Satyabhama and Jambvati; his father Vasudev had two wives, Devki (Krishna’s mother) and Rohini (Balram’s mother) and Ram’s father Dashrath had three wives, besides even Bheem having a wife other than Draupadi (Gatodkach’s mother) and Arjun too had several, including Krishna’s sister Subhadra. Also, while Muslim personal law indeed suffers from various flaws when it comes to gender equality, so do Hindu personal law and Parsi personal law (the former, in Goa, still allows polygamy). I personally support the idea of a uniform civil code if it gives equal rights to men and women, and so do sections of Muslims, and equally, those opposing it include sections of Parsis and sections of Christians.

Some Hindus criticize Muslims for having many children because they practise polygamy as permitted by their faith (though census reports have established that Hindus are more polygamous than Muslims, even though it is illegal for the former, and I myself know a Hindu electrician in Delhi who has engaged in bigamy), even though that actually doesn’t make a difference to the number of children as long as the number of reproductive women remains the same. Four women would respectively give birth to the number of children they would, irrespective of whether they are married to one man or four different men! And as has already been mentioned, not as many Muslim men in India actually engage in polygamy.

And there are indeed many Hindus too, particularly in rural areas and in several cases, even among the urban educated class, who have several children even if they are monogamous. As Khushwant Singh has pointed out in his famous autobiography, many educated Hindus who have been public figures, like former president V.V. Giri, former prime minister Narasimha Rao and our very own Lalu Prasad Yadav have all had many children, and even Narendra Modi is the third of his parents’ six children.

No Muslim-majority country (but for parts of them ruled by militias like the Taliban and ISIS), not even Saudi Arabia, has legally imposed wearing burqas (though only Iran has imposed headscarves; however, as regards wearing burqas, it must be noted that the Quran does not ordain it, nor do Hadiths of undisputed authenticity), or prohibited women from driving (though only Saudi Arabia, other than militia-ruled regions, has imposed a ban on women driving, but a Saudi cleric also declared that there was nothing in the Islamic texts that prohibits women from driving). In Dubai, there are women-run family taxis.

******While stating this cost LK Advani the post of BJP president, Jinnah arguably wanted Pakistan to be a Muslim-majority secular state like Turkey, as has been discussed in this research paper.

********I happened to interact with a young female defence journalist in India and asked her how it was to be in this male-dominated profession. She corrected my misconception and told me that though fewer women enter this field by their own choice, several senior defence journalists in India, including in the defence magazine she herself worked for, happen to be women, and that Doordarshan’s defence correspondent was also a woman.

********In fact, the title of Saikla’s piece stating that girls cannot talk war implies that women cannot professionally discuss strategic matters, which is an insult to female defence analysts, female war reporters and female combatants. My friend Neha Rathi, a lawyer by qualification like me, rightly points out that many men have such a condescending generalized view towards women’s skills at discussing gadgets or even women’s driving skills, which annoys her given that she thinks of herself as being a pretty good driver but men who have newly learnt to drive also try to showcase some kind of superiority complex (and I may point out, though she didn’t cite these examples, that Laleh Seddigh from Iran and Danica Patrick from the United States are two female car-racers who have outperformed men), though the attitude towards women in some fields, such as the legal profession, has indeed changed for the better.

 Karmanye Thadani